


Magnets

by HalfASlug



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 23:36:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6446752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfASlug/pseuds/HalfASlug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose and Tentoo adjust to life as parents to a part alien toddler with a genius IQ.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magnets

The Doctor was used to coming home and finding everything wasn’t as he left it. Sometimes one of his experiments would go wrong and they’d be a terrible smell coming from his lab. Sometimes Rose would bring home an alien from work and they’d be a peculiar smell coming from the kitchen as they drank tea together. Sometimes Jackie would pop over for a visit and there would be an awful smell from the dining room as she’d decided to cook them dinner.

The unexpected was so expected in his life that it was practically the norm and he would have hated life any other way.

He should have predicted that to increase tenfold the moment he learnt he was going to become a father.

It was a thoroughly average and therefore highly suspect Tuesday afternoon that he returned home from the shops with bags of food, nappies and more wet wipes than he thought anyone could ever require. It had only been a couple of years since Rose entrusted him with such tasks on his own. At first, he had a habit of forgetting the basics because he was so used to the TARDIS providing them for him or because he had no use of them before becoming a little bit human. Even now he felt a rush of pride after a successful shopping trip.

With one hand laden with bags, the plastic twisting painfully around his fingers, he fiddled with his sonic until he found the right setting to open the door.

“Rose,” he called out once he’d squeezed inside and headed for the kitchen, “they didn’t have any of those-”

He stopped mid-sentence when a kettle whizzed by his head.

“Roooose!”

His keys flew of his hand and joined the vast array of items currently spinning around his living room.

In the middle of the carnage he spotted his son’s smiling face through the grid pattern of the laundry basket he was underneath just as he felt something grab his jacket and pull. He dropped the bags with a yelp.

“Wha-”

Blinking and struggling for balance, he realised he was now in the cupboard, surrounded by winter coats, the vacuum cleaner and Rose on the verge of tears.

“He’s a bit young for extreme hide and seek, don’t you think?” he quipped.

Judging by Rose’s fearful expression, his attempt at humour had fallen short. “Is Rod okay?”

“He’s under the laundry basket,” the Doctor replied. On a normal day that might have been cause for concern, but in the current circumstances it could mean anything so he kept his tone neutral.

Rose gripped the front of his shirt and rested her forehead against his chest.

“That robot toy you made him had magnets in it,” she explained. “I only went to kitchen for two minutes, I swear.” She gazed up at him, eyelashes clinging together and bottom lip wobbling dangerously. “I was getting him a snack and - but I left my sonic on the coffee table-”

“Ah.”

Before Rod had even been born they had established a set of firm rules. These included that he was never to take anything remotely like aspirin, only Torchwood doctors could see him and he was not allowed to learn about experimental sciences until he was at least five. From the offset, Rule Number One had always been to never leave a sonic screwdriver within his reach.

So far there had only been one occasion where this rule had been broken and it resulted in everything glass in their house smashing.

“It was only a couple of minutes, but then everything went crazy and the knife flew out of my hand and-”

“Hey, it’s okay,” the Doctor said, rubbing her back.

“By the time I got to the living room, he’d set it up so the magnets are spinning so all the metal stuff’s acting like it’s in _Poltergeist_.” Rose sniffed. “I tried to get him in here, but the toaster nearly hit me and nothing was going near him. I got the basket over him just in case and managed to get in here.”

The Doctor found himself in the strange position of being annoyed and proud of his son, protective and proud of his Rose and furious with his toaster.

“We knew something like this was going to happen one day,” he said as something heavy crashed into the door and Rod squealed with delight. “He’s your son. Of course, he’s going to be jeopardy friendly.”

Rose narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, this is clearly _my_ genes at work.”

“We could always look at the positives here,” he suggested. “Our little boy is only eight months old and already understands the basics of magnetics! I was probably his age when I caused my first electromagnetic nuisance.”

The smile he’d been fighting since he came home to find Rod’s latest project a total success was met with a glum shrug from Rose. She bit her thumbnail and avoided his eye, so he ducked down to try and get her to smile with him.  

“So this is normal?” she mumbled.

“Yup. His speech appears to be slowed down by his human genes-” Rose pinched him. “-but it looks as if he’s got his daddy’s scientific curiosity.”

“So you remember being eight months old? And your first electromagnetic whatever?”

The Doctor frowned. “Mostly. It wasn’t as memorable as my first nuclear accident, but still a fun day at nursery.”

Rose’s eyes went wide and the Doctor thought for a second one of the spinning objects had made it into their sanctuary. “So Rod might remember this?”

“Maybe. There’s no way of - _why are you crying?_ ”

“He’s going to remember me being a terrible mother!” She buried her face in his shirt with a pained noise. “There are kn-knives flying around and I p-put him in the _laundry basket!_ ”

After knowing her nearly a decade, wrapping his arms around Rose Tyler when she was stood near him was almost as instinctive as breathing. When she was upset it became just as necessary. However, this time she half-heartedly tried to throw him off because she “didn’t deserve a hug.”

It wasn’t enough to stop him and he tightened his grip and bent his head to rest it against hers. Eventually she relaxed against him and returned the embrace.

Since finding out they were going to have a baby after he had reassured her there was no chance they were biologically compatible and the response to her most basic questions about everything from gestation period to complications being a shrug, they had learnt to deal with everything as it happened. Every day would be an adventure. It was how they worked best, anyway.

While the experience had been terrifying and wonderful for him, for Rose it had been even more so. At least he had some experience with infant Gallifreyans, while she had only ever met him. Being his amazing Rose, she had risen to the challenge and dealt with every weird craving (bananas and quantum physics) and surprise (the bump demanding games of patty-cake at half five every evening) like she was the human embodiment of a loom.

(When he had said this to her, she had refused to speak to him for the rest of the morning, but the fact still remained.)

The only real difficulty had been towards the end of the final trimester when Rod’s telepathic abilities were developed enough to become frustrated every night when his mother went to sleep and ignored him for hours. In order to stop Rose’s headaches and Rod’s stress, the Doctor had to spend two weeks sleeping in a ball under the covers so his head was close enough to his unborn son so they could communicate. It meant he was sweltering hot, but the rest of his little family was happy so it was worth it.

Between eleven months of being pregnant with a part-alien and then raising said part-alien, it wasn’t surprising that sometimes Rose felt overwhelmed. It wasn’t the first time she had sobbed into his chest that month, but it was the first time it had happened in a dark cupboard.

“You are a brilliant mother, Rose,” he told her as he stroked her hair. “You risked yourself to make sure he was safe before you-”

“Ran away and abandoned him?”

He sighed and kissed the top of her head. “He’s happy and he’s healthy and he’s learning. What more could you want?” They listened to the sounds of their son laughing and clapping as the entire downstairs of their house was destroyed. “Except the obvious things like the living room in one piece.”

Rose hummed in agreement and he felt the vibration against his ribs. “I love you. And your menace of a son.”

“And I love you and your son who is just like you.”

She backed away enough to peer up at him with a frown. “A menace?”

“Nope,” he grinned. “He’s smart and funny and kind and beautiful.” He punctuated each word with a kiss to her forehead before wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. “But your hair is really greasy.”

“Didn’t have time to wash it this morning because someone needed feeding.”

The Doctor kissed her again, greasy hair be damned, before moving his feet around to work out what was on the floor. After stepping on several pairs of shoes and an umbrella, he found a bucket and put it over his head. No sooner had the world gone dark, it was lifted up again enough to reveal his eyes.

Rose smiled up at him.

“How about I go out there and sort Rod out, then tidy the house while you have a nice, long bath with all those terrible chemicals you love so much?”

She tapped the bucket with her finger. “There are knives out there.”

“And I’ve got a bucket.”

“A plastic bucket.”

Outside there was the smashing sound of what could only have been their TV.

The Doctor routed around the back of the cupboard and held up the sledge he’d bought a few months ago when it had snowed. He grinned at Rose, who dropped the bucket back over his face.

“My hero,” he heard her muffled voice say as his head was pulled forward. He felt Rose kiss the front of the bucket and he made a pleased noise in the back of his throat.

Giving Rose one final squeeze around the waist, he cracked open the door and hurried outside. He raised the sledge and lifted the bucket enough to see that the destruction of their living room was nearly complete. Rod was watching their belongings shoot around the room with the sort of wonder he usually reserved for scale model of the galaxy the Doctor had made for him.

He quickly located the remains of the robot toy, in various corners of the room, magnets attached and spinning in order to wreak havoc on anything magnetic. He noted with reluctant admiration that Rod had found the perfect spot to watch the show out of the way of the circling items. The sonic screwdriver he’d given Rose for her birthday years ago lay innocently on the floor amongst the wreckage.

“DADA!”

Through the holes in the laundry basket, Rod made grabby hands at him, his face the picture of delight.

“Rod, I am very proud of you,” he told his son as he batted away a swarm of nails, “but we are still going to have words once I’ve put the house back together.”


End file.
